I have well known but quite difficult to sort out problem here. And yes I was searching on forum but those threads are old enough so I decided to create new post. So I built a website using WP and included html FORM in one page. When user fills the form (in his/her language) the values of the fields' go into MySQL database table reg_form.
Everything works, the values are saved, BUT some characters (specific in that language) are not recognized. I tried a lot of different methods to solve this, but nothing can help.
The strangest thing is that if you look at WordPress tables you can find those specific characters are recognizable but not in reg_form table which I created.
I was trying to solve this problem and finally I decided to approach in somehow ridiculous way. I created NEW database, new tables, installed new wordpress, created new form etc.
That‘s what I was doing:
I used this suggestion first: http://tympanus.net/codrops/2009/08/31/solving-php-mysql-utf-8-issues/
Yes, my files are saved using UTF8 encoding (without BOM). Yes, meta tags are ok. Yes, the FORM uses accept-charset='UTF-8'. Yes, all tables in database use UTF8. Yes, server, database and tables collation is the same “utf8_general_ci”.
Then I tried to insert in my code this:
$conn = mysql_connect($server, $username, $password);
mysql_set_charset("UTF8", $conn);
Then I tried this suggestion link here: akrabat.com/php/utf8-php-and-mysql/
Then I tried to set Apache's AddDefaultCharset in .htaccess file using this link here: httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/core.html#AddDefaultCharset
BUT… still the problem remains. I can’t see those specific characters properly – only weird hieroglyphic.